Monday 26 May 2014

Dieting update

Ive been having quite a bit of weight loss success recently, love handles have gone down a bit and waist looks tighter, also people have been giving me complements that I look "healthy".

I still have fat to lose and it is all subcutaneous fat, which is murder to get rid of. But here's what im doing at moment

Melanotan II - Ive had to stop this completely because im very dark now and get weird looks from everyone in the street.

Clenbuterol - 20-40mcg per day, im using this because I need an edge to get rid of the stubborn subcutaneous fat and especially the love handles that have higher alpha receptors. I dont really like using Clen because the sides are pretty intolerable, MAJOR headache, shaky, anxiety,, jittery etc. But hey, it works.

CJC1295 with DAC - this is a growth hormone promoter, im just experimenting with it at the moment, been on it 4-5 weeks which is probably still a bit early to talk about results.

Nicotine Gum - 4-8mg per day, mainly to help shed the fat. I havent found nicotine gum to be addictive at all. If I go without it for a few days I feel absolutely no urge to use it. Works well as an appetite suppressant.

Diet - this is the thing that has made the biggest change. Ive made up my mind to stick with a cyclic keto diet. 6 days per week will be ultra low carb, only cheese,cream, meat, seafood, vegetables, avocado,  nuts, eggs. whey, butter. Some strawberries or raspberries if im feeling a slight sugar craving.

1 day per week I do ultra high-carb BUT low fat. My carb sources have been mainly banana, honey, beans, potatoes.   Infact I do about 12 banana's during my carb re-feeds, dipped in honey.   I try to keep the carb sources clean and stay away from the dirty carb's like bread, pizza, doughnuts etc. As I said, I think its key to keep fat low during the carb refeed, So its just whey, lean meats, and carbs.

If we look at the graph below, we see that the co-ingestion of carbs with fat causes a huge spike in the intestinal hormone GIP which is known adipocyte insulin sensitizer.



So ideally, you dont want to spike your GIP through the roof and insulin sensitize all your fat cells so much. Although there is no comparison to protein + carb in this study graph so im making a bit of a guess that its not as high as with fat, but fat is known to be the strongest promoter of GIP secretion.

During my low carb days I usually make breakfast 50g whey, 50g coconut oil, 4 tablespoon vinegar.  All these have been shown to reduce waist circumference and if there's one thing everyone should take on board its that getting a tiny waist is paramount to your physical attractiveness.

Another thing I want to comment on is that LC, or rather low insulin, seems to upreglate beta-receptors. I noticed after a few days of almost zero carb im extremely sensitive to clen, also side effects of clen seem to vanish as soon as you eat something that spikes insulin. Indeed there is a study floating around out there showing that beta-receptors become phosphorylated only 30mins after insulin exposure.



Wednesday 7 May 2014

The problem with introverts

Having recently come from a holiday with my family where most of them are highly extroverted it kind of occurred to me what the main difference between the two is.

I have noticed when I am in a large group or in particular, with a strong extrovert, my brain shuts down. Ive seen alot of other introverts report this aswell. If you google search this topic you will also find similar testimonials, of introverts being unable to speak/think in the presence of ( strong ) extroverts. On these googled websites they will tell you some pseudoscience rubbish that introverts are "sensitive" to dopamine. And that too much dopamine "shuts" your brain down.

Here's what I think is happening......

If we remember from sapolsky's texts, dopamine is involved in the "pursuit of reward". Even better, I think its fairer to say that dopamine is a "do it" and "action/reaction" driving neurotransmitter.

When an organism receives a stimulus from the environment, the magnitude of the dopamine spike in response to that stimulus determines the magnitude of the reaction that the organism makes to that stimulus.

So, the problem with introverts is that the random small talk bullshit that extroverts like to spew forth doesn't cause a dopamine spike in an introverts brain, and thus the response from the introvert is either very short/breif/dull/boring.

Its not that your introverted brain is "shutdown". Its that the pointless banter of the extrovert doesn't stimulant it.

Its not that introverts are "boring", but rather Introverts like to talk about stuff that interests them, stuff that is meaningful, has logical purpose, is relevant to our survival, or conducive to success and improved quality of life.  That is what they dopamine spike to.

If you as an extrovert ask me a question to which I return a vacant blank stare and dull short response, its because im too polite to say "stfu , im not interested in that irrelevant shit"

There is no willpower, or conscious thought, involved in dopamine spikes, they are completely involuntary responses, and so your instinctual urge of how to respond is also pre-programmed and involuntary.  "boring" or "dull" has nothing to do with it.

Another problem with introverts is there brains are less likely to retain information that is not helpful for their survival or future success. This is an additional reason why small talk with introverts is hard because they dont care to remember WORTHLESS fucking details.